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"GREAT BRITAIN 
FOR DEMQCRACY^^ 

A SPEECH 

DELIVERED AT CHICAGO 
SEPTEMBER 25th, 1918 

AT 

THE CONVENTION OF THE 
AMERICAN BANKERS' ASS'N. 



BY 



LT. COL. G. G. WOODWARK 



OF 



THE BRITISH ARMY 

Distributed, with the a^orovcil of the 
CommitLee on Pub'icni:;on3 tlTrouijh 
THE AMERICAN RIGHTS LEAGUE, 
2 West 45th Street, N. Y. 



PRICE 10 CENTS 



{iisiisiasiKiiaiigiisssisgiiaiissiiiisiigiiiiaiiiiisiiisisiiEisHiaiiiagiiaiKiiMiissis 



From the Press of 

CIVIL SERVICE PRINTING CO., 

129 Fulton Street, New York 












•"H. 



"GREAT BRITAIN FOR DEMOCRACY' 

1. The Raising and Training of the British Armies for Service. 

2. With the British Armies in France. 

3. The British Naval and Military Contribution to the War. 

4. Industrial Re-organization of Britain for the War. 

5. The War-organization of Britain for Domestic Economy. 

6. British Financial Organization for the War. 



!^ 



Mr. PRESIDENT, LADIES and GENTLEMEN: The great honor you 
haVe done me by inviting me here is one which I accept with affectionate 
gratitude — for my country. It is of Britain's part in the war that I have 
been asked to speak — and I feel very much at home in the familiar atmosphere 
oi this brother-democracy, today so closely allied with our own Great "Com- 
monwealth of Nations," as General Smuts, of the British War Cabinet, has so 
finely termed the British Empire. And in the democratic sense of these 
history-making days, I much prefer that name for the British territories, 
wide-spread across the world: a Commonwealth of Nations! For thus con- 
stituted it is, in truth — and as a citizen and soldier of it, I feel myself very 
much at home speaking here, as it were, in the house of a member of the 
family. 

So, if I dwell upon the part taken in the war by my particular branch of the 
English-speaking race, you will bear with me: it is of Britain's part in the 
war that I have been asked to address you — of the raising and training of her 
armies; of their battling in the fields of France, in which I have been proud to 
take a part; of Britain's naval and military contributions to the war, and that 
of her great Dominions and dependencies; of the thorough and far-reaching 
re-organization of the British Industrial machinery during the war; of her 
finally, though with diffidence and as a layman in the presence of professionals, 
of Britain's war-finance, from its more popular and public aspects. 

I will begin, then, with the up-building of the British fighting machine — 
the first and most urgent of the tasks we had to face, and one to which all of 
you will listen with sympathetic understanding, yourselves having so recently 
carried through a similar job with such consummate efficiency, and of which 
you are now witnessing results that will go down in history to the glory 
of your nation, and, if I may say so, to the glory of our whole family of 
nations. For we ask you to let us share in the happiness of your triumphs, 
as we feel that you have shared in ours, and as we know, full well, that you 
suffered with us and succored us in the darker days, now safely passed. 



1. THE RAISING AND TRAINING OF THE BRITISH ARMIES FOR 

SERVICE. 

Up to 1914 England, like America, was a pacific nation, with no standing 
army, and — (also like America) — with a navy not more than adequate for the 
insurance of her over-seas interests. Hence the same problem faced Britain 
and America when each stepped into the arena: the problem of organizing a 
great army, — infantry, artillery, cavalry, air-forces, engineers, medical corps, 
army service corps — an army to be made fit to meet and beat the highly 
trained professional conscript armies of the enemy. 

The first two years of Britain's army-building was upon a voluntary basis, 
— and it should never be forgotten as a proof of national — or should I not 
say international?^ — loyalty and morale unequalled in history, that on this 
basis we recruited upwards of 5,000,000 volunteers, expanding our army 
from its pre-war strength of 300,000 "regulars" to that huge figure. That 
is not to say that it might not have been more scientifically efficient to apply 
conscription at the outset, as America has done, and as England ultimately 
found it necessary to do, in order to apportion more nicely her available man- 
power to the multifarious tasks of war — military, quasi-military, and civilian. 
In fact it was ultimately decided that, fine and generous as was the response 
of the volunteer spirit, it did not permit of a properly controlled adjustment 
of "the man to the job" such as can be more readily effected by the method 
of the selective draft. 

The first steps taken in the raising of volunteer troops on the outbreak 
of war I can describe to you from my own experience — more or less typical 
of the general methods and results operative throughout the United Kingdom. 

On August the 4th, 1914, the Territorial forces of Great Britain received 
mobilization orders, to report to their depots. Being a Norfolk man, and for 
over twenty years associated with the Volunteer or Territorial organization 
of the county, I at once proceeded to the East Dereham depot, and thence 
we were sent to Colchester, the concentration centre for training purposes. 

After a month or two there I was ordered to return to my county to recruit 
men from Norfolk, for the first line units. I realized that to get quick and 
sizable results a dramatic method was needed, and I consequently adopted 
some good American "hustle." Touring the county with a regimental band 
and about twenty automobiles, I drew up a carefully planned tour of towns and 
villages, was "press-agented" well in advance, and timed to speak at each 
place as per schedule. I took an examining doctor with me en route, and the 
volunteers were passed immediately after the meetings and hustled direct to 
the depot. There was no time for cooling of heels; and I found no signs of 
"cold feet." In this way I recruited 5,000 men in about five weeks. 

These men were then passed either into the Territorials or into Kitch- 
ener's Army, according to their choice. In the former they could select 
their regiment; in the latter they went where the military authorities sent 
them. 

I then took 1,000 of these men and formed and organized a battalion of 
2nd line supports, to feed the first line abroad. Later I organized another 
battalion of the 2nd line, and was given command June 21, 1915. This battalion 
was turned into a draft-finding unit for supplying trained men for the fighting 
fronts. 

Many were the difficulties and obstacles during these early months of 
training — lack of equipment, boots, rifles, uniforms. But with keenness and 



good will on all sides the job went through, and in due course order came out 
of chaos and the wheels of the army-making machine ran more smoothly. 
With these first batches of volunteers came the cream of England's sons — 
rushing to her defense, and, after training, sent out rapidly to the front to 
replace the casualties of the expeditionary force; themselves in turn to find 
a bed in French or Belgian soil. There was no time to apply a selective pro- 
cess with a view to fitting each man to the work he could do best; everyone 
who could carry a rifle and use it, soon found his place in the fighting line. 
This resulted in fearful wastage of material, — but it was unavoidable at that 
critical juncture. Such was my experience of volunteer recruiting during the 
early months of the war and until I myself went to the front. 

The second phase of recruiting, by conscription, became essential through 
the demand of the war-industries for many of the highly-trained men — 
mechanics, designers, ship-builders, miners — who had rushed to the front with 
the first armies, but whose civilian services, as soon became apparent, were 
vital to the work of supplying the fighting forces with guns, munitions, 
transportation, and so forth. 

As soon as it became evident that conscription was essential to victory 
and they understood the true reasons for its necessity, all classes of the 
nation met the conditions with hearty good-will. 

Thus, in the very midst of the clash and din of war, with the enemy at 
her very doors, Britain, with the stalwart aid of her splendid sister-common- 
wealths of the Empire, builded a fighting machine which has enlisted 
no less than 8,500,000 souls — of which total Great Britain herself has con- 
tributed 6,250,000; the Dominions 1,000,000; India and Dependencies 
1,500,000. Today one out of every three males, of all ages, in the British Isles 
is fighting. As M. Clemenceau, the Premier of France has so finely borne 
witness: "England did not want war . . . But now behold her in the 
midst of conflict. Slowly, but with a stubborn determination that nothing avails 
to diminish or to daunt, she has transformed herself into a military power." 

Stupendous as has been our task, in Britain and in the Dominions, even 
more gigantic in some ways at least, was the problem America had to meet. 
For — as we are told by your military men — your machine was yet in process 
of re-construction — was not yet completed e'er it was called upon to cope 
with the raw material — the splendid stock of human material which was ready 
and waiting to be put through it. True that you profited by avoiding our mis- 
takes — but is not the ability to learn in the school of experience the finest test 
of high intelligence and efficiency? All honor to those who served America 
night and day in the pressing, urgent task of supplying to us, your hard- 
pressed and war-weary Allies, and so absolutely in the nick of time, tlie 
finished product of your mighty war-machine — that magnificent product which 
is now employed in writing upon the pages of this country's history, so glorious 
a record of human attainment^ — and of sacrifice! 



2. WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE 

And now to speak of our Armies in action. Surveying the war today 
from its beginning, I will deal with it in three periods — first, from its opening 
to the end of the first battle of the Marne; second, the defensive-offensive cam- 
paigns, with the battles of the Somme and of Verdun, up to the close of 
1917; and finally from the German offensive of last spring to the present date 



As is well known, on the part of the British Empire there was never a 
moment's hesitancy, once Germany had doffed her mask, as to our proud duty 
to stand loyally by our glorious friend and neighbor, your and our beloved 
Ally, France, and our intrepid little neighbor, with the heart of a lion, Bel- 
gium. Utterly unprepared as we were, Britain could not hesitate — and 
it is with pride, for which I would still claim the proper humility of all 
servants of humanity, that I call upon the generous witness of both of those 
countries, as to the effectiveness of our prompt co-operation. Apart from the 
vital service of our navy in bottling up the German fleet, had we not hurled 
into the breach our gallant little army — our "contemptible little army," — 
there could have been no victory of the Marne to stay the German hordes 
and to save Paris from their violating grip. Let no nation fear to acknowledge 
its past faults — not all the pages of our history are unsmirched. "Let the 
dead past bury its dead"; our Allies will not forget through all time, the sac- ^ 
rifices of our first expeditionary force thrown across the invader's path, and 
they have testified to its essential effectiveness in the primary defeat of the 
enemy in those awful first weeks of war. 

Of the next stage of the struggle — those gruelling years when the utmost 
that we could do was to stand fast and oppose our inferior numbers of hurriedly 
trained and equipped troops solidly against the enemy's highly organized 
efficiency; to fire our one ill-spared shell in reply to the twenty from his well- 
filled arsenals; to pit our few guns against his serried artillery — of those years,. 
1915 to 1917, I can speak to you somewhat from my personal experience at 
the front. 

It was early in 1916 that I was relieved from my work of training troops 
at home and went to France to command a Bantam battalion — men all under 
five feet two inches, which was the then minimum height for infantry. My men 
of the Bantams were chiefly miners, whose occupation gave them fine chest 
development— working on their backs, picking at coal or rock, — but left 
them poor as to the legs: they lacked the "foundations," and marching was not 
their strong point. Our first sector was that of Beaumont-Hamel on the 
Somme front — the sector where the British first went "over the top" in the 
campaign which ultimately resulted in the withdrawal of the Germans to the 
Hindenburg line. You may recall that in this offensive on the first attack alone 
the British casualties were 60,000. 

Then in due course, we were sent to the Arras front — a line protected by 
very well-constructed defences and trenches: in fact the British held this 
sector against all attacks, from the time they established themselves in it after 
the first battle of the Marne, and in face of the Germans' most strenuous efforts 
to dislodge us from it during their spring offensive this year. 

Here, then, we had a comparatively easy time — qualified by the usual daily 
exchange of compliments in varying quantities in the shape of shells, bombs, 
gas, and so forth. The monotony was even relieved by some choice ex- 
amples of trench humor. The boche trenches were, in places, about fifty yards 
from our's, and were being held by Saxon troops. Shortly after we "went in" 
a sign in English, was displayed one fine morning from the habitat of the 
neighbors opposite. It read thus: 

WE ARE SAXONS FROM THE SOMME: 
SO ARE YOU— LET'S GO EASY! 

Eight days later our friend the enemy substituted the following notice 
for our edification: 



THE BAVARIANS RELIEVE US TONIGHT: 
GIVE 'EM HELL! 

Evidently someone in the boche lines knew quite a bit of good English I 

Later I was sent home with septic poisoning, and on my return I took 
command of another battalion on the Somme front. But by this time we were 
advancing, hard on the heels of the retreating Hun, who, while retiring to more 
comfortable quarters back on the Hindenburg line, took his revenge by de- 
vastating every square foot of territory. In fact it was only from the informa- 
tion of the peasantry left behind amid the ruins that we could identify the 
plans of the one-time "villages." They would point pitifully to where the 
church had stood; where the village pump had been; the chateau; and their 
own homes — not one stone left upon another. 

It was during this advance that I met with an unpleasant experience. The 
boches were shelling us, and managed to hit the dug-out which several of us 
occupied, burying us alive. It is an unpleasant sensation — to be sealed up in 
a tomb with other living corpses, with only a bit of candle or so between the 
lot, and no means of telling whether the place is to become a veritable grave 
or no. Fortunately, after a period of some strain, a relief party came to our 
aid and dug us out; it resulted in a startling reaction to find oneself restored 
to life after twenty-four hours of probationary death. 

In this advance I and my battalion reached Bapaume, where, as usual, 
we found that the Huns had destroyed systematically every building in the 
place — except, however, that they had left standing the Town Hall. But this 
little sign of regeneration proved merely a booby-trap. A week after our occu- 
pation the Hall blew up, killing two French deputies and some of our officers 
and men. A clock-mine had been deftly secreted and did its work effectively. 

On this line my battalion remained — the Cambrai-St. Quentin sector of 
the Hindenburg line, some miles beyond Bapaume — until at the close of 1917 
I was invalided home with shell-shock. 

I will now pass to a short survey of the third phase of the war on the 
Western front — the campaign of the present year. 

Small wonder that, at Russia's collapse and elimination from the war early 
in 1917, which released new German armies to outstrip our hard-earned in- 
crease in numbers and equipment, and snatched from us the long-promised 
Tiope of a great Allied Offensive — small wonder that on America's dramatic 
entrance into the arena, our eyes turned to her with eager hope, or that we 
watched with almost breathless expectancy for the speedy materialization of 
her support. The enemy pretended to belittle America's contribution and 
loudly asserted that the U-Boats would prevent the utilization of her power 
in the Allied cause. Again Germany miscalculated — as she has done through- 
out — the power of will in a great cause, to overcome obstacles. Lauching 
her vastly reinforced armies, 3 or 4 to 1, against the British front last March, 
she bent it — but could not break it. Followed a like onslaught against the 
French front — with like results. Not yet had the Allied armies filled up their 
ranks to equal Germany's in numbers — but they were newly inspired by the 
American support, and when Foch smote, in the second battle of the Marne, 
with America by his side, Germany's pride was badly mauled. Then Haig, 
already recovered from the battering of the spring, smashed forward on 
his front and crossed the Hindenburg line at its strongest point; and now 
America, in her first independent campaign, has administered the heavy and 
humiliating defeat of St. Mihiel. 



In fine, Germany has been out-generalled and out-soldiered. Her conscript 
system, which she initiated and thus imposed upon the rest of Europe, has,, 
in spite of all its vaunted efficiency, proved a failure. She has broken every 
rule of warfare to which she had pledged herself; she has descended to every 
kind of barbarous outrage on sea and land. Except when she fights with 
greatly superior numbers she is always beaten. And why? Complete efficiency 
must enlist not only every ounce of material power; it must enlist every 
ounce of every kind of power. Germany has always left out of account the 
mightiest factor in an army's force; its spiritual power. That power is in- 
domitable. It is this spiritual factor, imbuing every soldier and informing the 
whole line, which has set German "efficiency" at naught. Germany's kind of 
"efficiency" cottld succeed only if men were machines. It is the spirit of the 
Allied armies that will conquer — and has already discredited — the German 
military machine, built upon a basis of materialistic science which ignores 
— and by the showing of her own philosophers denies — the finest and most 
powerful of human qualities, while it openly flouts all sense of honor and 
decency. That, I hold, in the final analysis, is the rock upon which Germany's 
house will break — as her false and godless theory of life was the sand upon 
which she built it. 

The Allies possess a higher faith than that — and we may humbly thank 
God for it! All honor to the splendid men of all ranks in all our armies on the 
Western front; all honor to Foch, coolly selecting the proper moments to 
strike at the spent power of Germany's hosts; all honor to Haig coolly meet- 
ing the overwhelming odds of Germany's onslaughts last Spring, and as coolly 
reporting the results of his crushing counterstrokes of this Autumn; all honor 
to Pershing, coolly stepping into the arena with his fresh young armies, who are 
as coolly doing the work of veterans in our great crusade for civilization! 

3. THE BRITISH NAVAL AND MILITARY CONTRIBUTION TO 

THE WAR. 

From the foregoing brief survey of the Western front, I will pass to a 
bird's eye view of th? other fronts, scattered over the face of the globe. 
To cut off from our enemies all external support, direct or indirect, it was 
necessary not merely to meet their attacks in the European fields, but to 
eliminate them as far as possible from all other parts of the world. Hence the 
campaigns employing naval and military forces, in which the British Dominions,. 
South Africa, and India have joined us so splendidly against the German 
colonies and Turkey's territories in Asia. South African and British troops 
have gained complete control of the German colonies in that continent. Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, have seized their possessions in the Antipodes; our 
gallant ally, Japan, reduced Kiaochau in a few weeks; our British and Indian 
armies in Mesopotamia and Palestine are performing the triple task of defeat- 
ing the Turkish forces, of freeing the races hitherto subject to Ottoman abuse 
and misrule, meanwhile bringing under cultivation over 1,000 square miles ot 
hitherto unproductive land which now yields food for ourselves and our Allies, 
representing a saving in shipping of about 2,000,000 tons annually. In the- 
Balkans, Serbia and Greece are striking at Bulgaria and forcing her to 
her knees; while Italy, who on her front is performing so magnificently her 
stupendous task — more wearing and trying to armies even than such warfare 
as we are experiencing on the Western front^stands by her Allies with a 
steadfast loyalty which is beyond all need of praise and gratitude. Lastly,. 

8 



we have the recent expeditions with which America is associated in support 
of the loyalist Russian population against the machinations of German in- 
triguers and agents. 

In all these far-flung projects, it is our pride to have been able to take 
our part — sometimes assisting, sometimes assisted by our Allies or our 
Dominions, to whose loyal efforts I must now bear witness. 

For indeed the contribution of every part of the British Empire has been 
marvelous. Canada by herself has made an effort equal to that made by 
Great Britain in the Boer War, raising half a million men. Australia, in 
proportion to her widely distributed population, has equalled Canada's ac- 
complishment. Of the Indian troops serving under the British flag. General 
Smuts declared: "I never wish to command more loyal, braver and better 
soldiers. The Indian forces who are now helping to break up the Turkish 
Empire in Mesopotamia are making a contribution to the war which should 
never be forgotten." New Zealand, with a small population of a little more 
than a million, has raised no less than 100,000 men. New Foundland's effort 
is proportionately generous. South Africa, "compensated after the Boer 
war by one of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of 
the British Empire" — I quote the words of General Smuts who led the Boers 
against us in 1899-1902, and is now one of the most valued and influential mem- 
bers of the British War Cabinet — South Africa has done yeoman's service to 
the common cause, by clearing the Germans from that continent and by her 
contribution to the armies at the other fronts, a service which, redounds to 
her own honor as it bears glowing testimony to the solidarity of the British 
Commonwealth of Nations of which she so recently became a part. 

Turning to the high seas, I need not speak at length of the service rendered 
to the world by the British navy, whose predominance alone has made 
possible not only the continuance of the main campaign on the Western Front, 
but all the vast subsidiary projects for the discomfiture and defeat of the 
Allies' enemies. 

In August, 1914, the British navy had a tonnage of 2,500,000 and a per- 
sonnel of 145,000 officers and men. Today it has a tonnage of 8,000,000, includ- 
ing the auxiliary fleet, and in 1917, the personnel stood at 430,000. The joint 
action of the American and British Navies has made possible the safe conduct 
of the American armies to France, and has almost wiped out the threat of the 
pirate U-Boat. The Navy's main task is not spectacular — but the figures are 
dramatic: it has convoyed no less than 13,000,000 men, of whom only 2,700 
were lost by enemy action; it has convoyed 2,000,000 horses and mules; 500,000 
vehicles; 25,000,000 tons of explosives and supplies; 51,000,000 tons of oil and 
fuel; 130,000,000 tons of food and other material for use of the Allies; all this 
in addition to its unceasing patrol of the North Sea — hoping and waiting for 
the impotent German fleet, which cost its nation $1,500,000,000, to come out 
and give us battle. 

I must claim your attention also for a few facts and figures concerning 
our Air Service. In 1914 Great Britain possessed a total of 110 aeroplanes 
and a personnel of 900 officers and men. In 1917 the personnel had reached 
42,000, and the machines had increased ta many thousands. 

In 1914 the amount of bombs dropped was practically nil; in June, 1917, the 
weight of bombs dropped by British aviators on German fortified towns was 65 
tons; in May, 1918, it was 668 tons. In a single day on the Western front Brit- 
ish aviators silenced no fewer than 127 German batteries, 28 gun-pits were 
destroyed, and 60 explosions were caused. 



From July, 1917, to June, 1918, 4,102 enemy machines in all theatres of war 
were destroyed or brought down by British aviators with a loss of only 1,213 
of our machines. 

The following is a record of one month's accomplishments by British 
airmen: 139 enemy machines destroyed. 122 enemy machines driven down out 
of control, 7,886 bombs dropped on Western front, 209,000 rounds fired from the 
air, 15,837 photographs taken, always, of course, under heavy shell fire. 

A big British aeroplane of a new type, carrying 9 passengers in addition 
to its crew, recently made a trip from the interior of France to the interior of 
England in just over half an hour. During the night of August 21st, 
1918, British aviators bombed 5 German towns, dropping 194 tons of bombs. 

The brutal raids of Zeppelins upon open and defenceless towns in England 
have been avenged — but only in accordance with the agreed rules of war- 
fare; we have not taken our revenge upon the women' and children of Ger- 
many, but upon their military centres and fortifications. 



4. THE INDUSTRIAL RE-ORGANIZATION OF BRITAIN FOR WAR 

And now, after surveying the British naval and military forces in action, 
let us glance at the work of the British industrial army at home. For it is 
true that but for the work of the Army of civilians, our cause would have been 
lost. 

Over 4,000,000 men and women are today working in British Munition 
factories; they are producing in two weeks more shells than were produced 
in the whole of the first year of the war. 

When war broke out Britain possessed but three National Arsenals; 
today she has 200. Over 5,000 privately owned factories and works are now 
under government control; in one area alone shell bodies or the components 
are now being made by a musical instrument manufacturer, an infants' food 
maker, a candle maker, a flour miller, an advertising agent, several brewers, a 
jobmaster, a glazier and a syphon manufacturer. 

In the last six months of 1917, Canada contributed no less than 15 per cent 
of the British output of munitions. 

Upon British clothing and boot factories has fallen the great task of sup- 
plying a large proportion of the equipment of the Belgian, French, Italian and 
Russian armies; indeed, without British uniforms and boots some of our 
Allies would have had no option but to relinquish the fight. 

The entire fabric of Britain's industry has been revolutionized; all oyer 
the country immense new factories have been erected, devoted exclusively to 
the manufacture of munitions. New villages and even whole towns have 
sprung up almost in a night, yet the Ministry of Munitions has found time to 
organize a staff of experts, whose sole duties are to dear with the housing of the 
workers and to look after their welfare. 2,000 miles of track, 1,000 locomotives 
and many tens of thousands of railroad cars have been shipped abroad. 

Canada has contributed quantities of railroad materials, including no 
less than 450 miles of rails, torn up from Canadian railways and shipped direct 
to France. 

For the steadfast loyalty and heroic self-sacrifice of British labor to the 
Allied cause no praise would be adequate, 

10 



As for the women, they are splendid 1 

Up to the outbreak of war Great Britain had approximately 200,000 female 
-workers, mostly employed in the textile industry. Today over 6,000,000 British 
women are doing 1,701 different kinds of work previously done by men, and, 
what is more, they have broken every record of pre-war production set up by 
the sterner sex. Over 1,000,000 are directly employed in Munition producing 
plants, over 500,000 are employed in Engineering and Chemical works, 300,000 
are working as farm laborers, 20,000 are in the uniform of the Women's Aux- 
iliary Army Corps, working in France or Britain, as Motor-drivers, bakers, 
clerks, etc. Over 10,000 are in the Women's Royal Naval Service, doing similar 
duties for British Jack Tars. 

I am told that five thousand British girls have been dispatched to the 
American Army in France; some are engaged in clerical duties, and some 
are making "pies" for your boys at the front. 

As our Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, has said: "If it had not been 
for the splendid manner in which the women came forward to work in the 
hospitals and munition factories, in administrative offices of all kinds, and in 
war work behind the lines, often in daily danger of their lives, Great Britain, 
and, I believe, all the Allies would have been unable to withstand the enemy 
attacks of the last few months. For this service to our common cause 
humanity owes them unbounded gratitude." 

5. THE WAR ORGANIZATION OF GREAT BRITAIN FOR 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY 

England has suffered deprivation, rather than actual privation; luxuries 
have been largely eliminated; necessities drastically reduced — but not to the 
point of causing keen distress or hunger. Her system of Food-Control is partly 
voluntary, partly compulsory. As the Economy Exhibition will demonstrate 
to those who attend it, the weekly ration for a man or woman doing manual 
labor includes the following: 

Butcher meat, without bone or fat 8 ounces. 

Bacon 12 ounces. 

Butter 2 ounces. 

Sugar (individual use for all purposes) 7 ounces. 

Milk is not rationed — but the supply to dealers is restricted to not over 
the average amount daily, for sale, which they had three months previous to 
the ration-system going into effect. 

Bread is not rationed — but bakers are allowed to use only 60 per cent of 
white flour, and their supplies are similarly restricted. 

Maximum prices have been established for nearly all food-stuffs in common 
use, and the poor are thus protected from any attempt at exploitation. 

Undoubtedly a moral and sociological advantage has resulted from the 
enforcement of "the simple life" upon all classes of the community alike. 
From those conditions has arisen a mutual sympathy and understanding 
between rich and poor, high and low, which testifies to the democratic plan 
upon which our Anglo-Saxon commonwealths are based. 

11 



In spite of the exceptional difficulties created by the shortage of labor, 
Great Britain has increased her arable area by 2,142,000 acres since the out- 
break of the war. This increased area is divided as follows: 



Per cent 
Acres Increase 

Wheat 752,000 39 

Barley 158,000 11 

Potatoes 217,000 50 

Oats 735,000 35 

Three thousand Government'-owned tractors are at work on 611,000 acres 
of land. One million acres are worked by steam ploughs under the Govern- 
ment's direction. Cheese-making schools have been set up in 33 counties. 
Special efforts are being made to increase the supply of sea-food; in this direc- 
tion I would point out that the transference of a single trawler from the fishing 
industry to the mine-sweeping service means 350 tons of fish lost to the 
country, or an aggregate of over 1,000,000 tons lost per annum, 

British agricultural scientists have rendered yeoman service. A Russian 
wheat which resists rust but yields a miserably poor crop has been married to 
a British wheat with a high yield which now repels the rust; the result is 42 
bushels per acre, or, with pushing, 72 bushels. There is every prospect of their 
producing in the near future a potato immune from blight or wart. 

In order to preserve all available fruit, 6,000,000 bottles are being dis- 
tributed this year to house wives. 

Britain's grain crop this year will be the biggest since 1868. The army 
of harvesters now employed include wounded soldiers, college boys and girls, 
boy scouts, Belgian and Serbian refugees. Three hundred thousand women 
work on the land. 

So much for the work of the Government Department, but what of tne 
work of the people themselves? 

Over 1,400,000 new war gardens have been put under cultivation, mostly by 
people who have already done a long day's work in a munition factory, at the 
office desk, or on other duties. It is chiefly owing to the patriotic efforts of 
these amateur gardeners that Britain increased her potato crop by 3,000,000 
tons in 1917, thus releasing a vast amount of tonnage for the use of the Allies. 

This increased production has enabled us to divert cereal imports to 
France and Italy to meet the shortage in those countries. 



6. BRITISH FINANCIAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE WAR 

In touching upon the Financial effects of the War I can speak only as a 
layman, and give you such facts and figures as may serve to illustrate the 
dimensions of the British contribution to the Allied cause, as viewed from 
the financial angle. 

12 



During the first four years of war the British Government has spent 
£7,930,000,000. To meet this sum, £2,021,000,000 have been collected in 
taxation and State sources; £5,909,000,000 have been borrowed. 

Deducting from the expenditure and revenue £800,000,000 for normal in- 
come and outgo during the four years, on the pre-war basis, we get war 
revenue of £1,221,000,000, and war expenditure of all kinds, including loans to 
Allies and purchases by Government of goods that will be resold, £7,130,000,- 
000. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his budget speech estimated the 
value of these recoverable assets (taking loans to Allies at half their face 
value) as £1,796,000,000 at the end of next March (1919). Taking them as, 
say, £1,800,000,000 now, this makes the four years' figures as follows: 

Total War Expenditures : £7,130,000,000 

Less Recoverable Expenditures, Loans to Allies, etc. £1,800,000,000 

Net War Cost £5,330,000,000 

Provided by Revenue £1,221,000,000 

Provided by Borrowing £4,109,000,000 



According to this calculation the proportion of the net war cost that we 
have raised by revenue is 23.04 per cent. Here in the United States I under- 
stand you have been able to meet a higher percentage of your war-cost from 
revenue. 

The stress upon the British purse has, perforce, been heavier; and the 
circumstances under which our expenditure has been incurred have been less 
favorable to careful economy than in the case of America. There is the 
further substantial consideration of the different periods of time during which 
each country has been subjected to the burden of war expenditure. 

Under the circumstances in which we were placed, it is perhaps fair to 
opine that during the stress of war, economy would not have been for us the 
chief of virtues. Yet the British Government and the British people may be 
justly proud of their methods of raising revenue, and of the proportion of the 
war expenses met and paid as the war goes on. 

First of these methods, which has been steadily inculcated and increased 
among all classes of the community, might be called the popular War-Loan 
habit as contracted in the periodical purchase of War Savings Certificates. 
Thereby the heart of the nation, with a regular weekly throb, pumps its finan- 
cial blood through the whole nation's system. The agents of some 40,000 local 
organizations throughout Great Britain, pass through the factories and the 
villages every week-end to gather those sixpences and half-crowns which 
quickly bring back to the contributors their War Savings Certificates and at 
the same time furnish the Government with the "sinews of war." From these 
little £1 Certificate alone, the Treasury has received £180,000,000. The total 

13 



raised by National War Bonds and Savings Certificates, in the ten months to 
July 27th, 1918, was £1,028,000,000 (roughly, five billion dollars). The result is 
that vi^hereas before the war there were not 350,000 individual holders of 
British Government securities, there are now no less than 17,000,000 holders. 
The "little people" now own stock, along with the rich, in this great venture of 
a co-operative Democracy. 

The second method of paying our way as we go (so far as human en- 
durance permits) is by a heavy increase of income tax and super-tax, and the 
imposition of an 80 per cent excess war-profits duty. Thus, an earned income 
of £200 ($960) which before the war paid a tax of £1.10.0 ($7.20), now pays 
£9 ($43.20); an unearned income of the same amount, paying $11.20 before 
the war, now pays $57.60. The tax-rate is raised as the incomes increase, and 
when an income reaches £2,500 ($12,000) the supertax comes into play and 
adds a second burden to the first. It is estimated that in the year 1918-1919 — 



The income-tax and super-tax will yield £290,450,000 

and the Excess-profits duty with munitions levy 300,000,000 



Total £590,450,000 

(or $2,834,160,000) 



In addition to these two sources of revenue, the Government find another 
in increased Customs and Excise. 

As for posterity, if it inherits no capital, it may at least console itself with 
having inherited a debt which will be only a fraction of what it might have 
been. 

And as for me, gentlemen, I am well content to leave the solution ot this 
weighty problem of dollars and cents, of pounds, shillings and pence, upon 
the broad financial shoulders of yourselves and of your banker-colleagues in 
England. I doubt not that of this, as of other problems that our countries will 
inherit from the war, America and Britain, standing together with our Allies, 
as they are now standing shoulder to shoulder in this great fight for our 
common heritage and for our common ideals, will discover the proper solution. 

And that reminds me. Was it not a financial problem also that gave 
our British forefathers the heritage of Magna Carta, upon whose principles 
both our countries base their constitutions of freedom, and of equality before 
the law? 

And was it not a temporary aberration from those Anglo-Saxon principles 
on the part of a stubborn British Government opposing its will to the clear 
sympathies of the majority of the British people, which, a hundred and forty- 
two years ago, gave rise to a subsequent Declaration of Independence by 
Britishers who then became the founders of these United States? 

And is it not possible, as Major George Haven Putnam so aptly turned the 
thought, as the representative of your Nation speaking at the epoch-making 

14 



commemoration of Independence Day in London last July Fourth, that the 
war we are now waging, side by side, may bequeath us jointly a third and still 
richer heritage — a Declaration of Inter-Dependence as between the United 
States of America and the British Commonwealth of Nations? 

Rich indeed would our heritage be should such an informal Declaration 
of Inter-Dependence between the English-speaking nations lead, in turn, to the 
realization of that greater Magna Carta of the Nations of the World, so 
grandly conceived and so eloquently defined by the President of your Country. 
Then indeed, would the blood of our youth not have been shed in vain I 




15 



iiaiiiiii 

018 497 617 1 • 



FORCES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



Per Cent. Per Cent. Proportion 
Per Cent, of Forces of of 

of excluding Population Population 
Forces India, in in 



England 4,530,000 

Wales 280,000 

Scotland 620,000 

Ireland 170,000 

Contingents from overseas 900,000 

India, Africa and other Depend- 
encies, Native Fighting Troops, 

Labor Corps, etc 1,000,000 13.3 





Africa, etc. 


Forces 


Forces 


60.4 


69.5 


13.3 


1 in 7.5 


Z.I 


4.3 


9.8 


1 in 10.2 


8.3 


9.6 


13.0 


1 in 7.5 


2.3 


2.7 


3.8 


1 in 26.3 


12.0 


13.9 


6.7 


1 in 15 



7,500,000 100 100 

Since the above figures nvere compiled the forces have been increased by about 
1,000,000, and the percentage of men born within the British Isles is today higher than 
shozvn above. 

CASUALTIES IN THE BRITISH ARMY 

In the first sixteen months of the war British casualties totalled 550,000, 
or about 78 per cent, of the entire original land forces. The first Expeditionary- 
Force had been almost annihilated; one division had lost 10,000 out of 12,000 
men, and 350 out of 400 officers. 

Complete details of killed, wounded and missing to date are unfortunately 
not available; but the following figures are reliable: 

Casualties, August, 1914, to end of 1915 550,000 

Casualties in the year 1916 650,000 

Casualties in the year 1917 800,000 

Thus, up to December, 1917, the British casualties were at least 2,000,000. 

PROPORTION OF BRITISH CASUALTIES 
November, 1917 

Relative Proportions of Men in British Forces and 
of Casualties suffered by each part of British Em- 
pire, exclusive of India, Africa, etc., November, 1917 
Per Cent, of Per Cent, of 

Armed Forces Casualties 

England and Wales .... 70 76 

Scotland 8 10 

Ireland 6 6 

Dominions and Colonies 16 ° 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 497 617 1 • 



HoUinger Corp. 



